TELEMEDICINE AS AN OPTION FOR HEALTH SERVICE LIMITATIONS IN COVID-19 PANDEMIC ERA

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic era provides a new habit in form of self-quarantine or physical distancing. The recommendation is to delay visits to health facilities if it is not in the emergency condition to slow down the spread of COVID-19 transmission. This study aims to develop a telemedicine system that integrates three main components, namely doctors, patients, and hospital management in Gotong Royong Hospital Surabaya to minimize the transmission of COVID-19 while still provides comprehensive health services. The development of telemedicine service is divided into 3 stages. In the first stage, emergency screening was carried out by developing Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). The second stage was continued with prototype testing and the last part was improving the system to create a better referral system. Gotong Royong Hospital telemedicine has been active since June 2021, within 2 months, 45 patients are willing to use telemedicine services. The results showed that telemedicine was easily accepted by patients in internal medicine clinic services (p<0,005). In addition, there are no differences in acute and chronic diseases conditions as well as COVID and non-COVID so that telemedicine can be recommended for all aspects of patient care. In the ease of obtaining related to treatment or length of treatment and interpretation of laboratory result, a significant difference was obtained (p = 0,01). Based on this result, the development of telemedicine services during the COVID-19 pandemic makes it easier for patients to gather information related to health care.